In Looking for Alaska by John Green, the reoccurring theme is the labyrinth. Alaska Young constantly refers to the labyrinth as her maze of suffering. On a dreary afternoon, Miles and Alaska sat in the student lounge relaxing and Miles asks Alaska to explain the origin of her name. This leads to a deep conversation about Alaska’s family and her ambitions for life after Culver Creek. As Miles and Alaska talk, Miles leans in to kiss Alaska and at first it seems as if Alaska is leaning in too. When Alaska snaps out of the trance she states that to speak about the future isn’t like her and that she is a doer not a thinker. This offers a deeper insight into Alaska’s personality. An intrigued Miles questions Alaska about her statement and she replies,
You just use the future to escape the present.” is appealing to me, because it represents something I hope to be. Too many times in my life I have missed great opportunities because I was so busy thinking, that I forgot to do. Every year my family and I go to Hocking Hills for a week-long vacation; Hocking Hills is known for its secluded cabins on top of the area’s mountainous terrain. One of the coolest things about Hocking Hills is the mass amount of zip line trails that weave in and out of the area’s most beautiful sites. For years I ignored the zip lines because of my fear of heights; I was caught up in thinking about the terror of the zip lines instead of just embracing my fears and enjoying the thrills. After ignoring the zip lines for years, last year I was finally convinced to go and it was well worth it. The beautiful waterfalls and amazing natural features kept my mind from dwelling on the fact that I was suspended 40ft in the air and protected only by a leather harness and a couple of thin wires. This zip line trip was one of the coolest things I’ve experienced and for years I had missed out on it because I couldn’t get past the mental
The movie the Labyrinth tells a story about a group of unlikely heroes trying to make their way though a maze in order to defeat the Goblin King. The story starts out with the main character Sarah whom, without even realizing it, wishes her baby brother to be taken way by Jareth the Goblin King. He tells her that if she wants her brother back she will have to make her way through the labyrinth and to the castle beyond the Goblin City. She only has 13 hours to complete the seemingly impossible task or her little brother Toby will be turned into a goblin. While making her way through the twisted and endless maze Sarah runs into many weird characters. The first person she encounters is Hoggle a very untrustworthy dwarf whom is under the influence of Jareth. He is selfish and does things only if there is something for him to gain. He betrays Sarah many times throughout the movie, but in the end he proves himself to be more than a traitorous coward. Ludo is a yeti and despite looking vicious is a gentle and caring monster. Ludo also has the power to control rocks. Sir Didymis is a loudmouthed, but noble knight who displays his valor throughout the movie. The four heroes manage to fight their way through the perilous labyrinth. The Goblin King Jareth is defeated and Sarah’s brother Toby is saved. Though the characters in this movie seemed to be nothing more than ordinary, and if not odd, they fought their way through labyrinth and conquered an entire army of evil goblins and their king. (Labyrinth 1986)
Man must not only remember his past, but also choose to remember it as it really happened—for, to again quote Eliot, “What might have been is an abstraction" (175). Fantasizing about an abstract, idealized past will never give success i...
In Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” and the song “The Cave,” by Mumford and Sons, they both treat the metaphor of a cave as a dark, bad, and evil antagonist that restricts you from seeing the truth and reaching your full potential. The cave can be seen as a permanent chain or an opportunity for change.
Plato's Allegory of a Cave is a story about prisoners that are chained underground, who can not see anything except for shadows caste on a wall by a fire. The only thing that these prisoners can see is the shadows of people. Eventually, one of the prisoners breaks free of the chain and ventures out into the real world. In the real world the freed prisoner discovers that the shadows in the cave are created from light diverge off people. He recognizes there is a whole new world filled with light. The freed prisoner is very confused and blinded by the light so he decides to return to the cave. When the prisoner returns to the cave, he shares what he saw in the real world with the other prisoners. The remaining prisoners treat the freed prisoner like he is crazy and they tell the freed prisoner that the real world does not exist. The prisoners in the cave do not believe in the real world because the cave is all that they know exists.
Like all the fairy tale will have a happy ending. "Pan 's Labyrinth" is no exception, but this layer of happiness is immersed in the bitter and depressed in the deep. Too much blood and tears, too many memories, too much darkness. Ofelia finally found her parents, returned to the eternal sweet home, but not one can really happy together. A fairy tale is hope, is the dream, is the comfort, is the ideal country. "Pan 's Labyrinth" is such a fairy tale, Ofelia through the murky darkness of the labyrinth find her happiness, just as experienced the cruel history 's Spanish people. Guillermo applied a metaphor in the end. The end of the tragedy is the film 's surface cover, in essence, is the protagonist Ophelia 's comedy
The film Pan’s Labyrinth, has several common concepts with Joseph Campbell’s theory on heroes in Hero with a Thousand Faces. His theory emphasizes on tests that show their moral and basic instincts for the rite of passage to their threshold, in this case, the underworld. Campbell’s theory is a concept that surrounds an individual’s journey to heroism. This concept pertains to Ophelia due to her circumstances as a child who ventures out on thresholds, tests, and so forth. Campbell’s depiction relates to Ophelia as he describes the levels in which one must attain and accept as a female heroine. Furthermore, his theory exaggerates on the making of a hero to the resurrection in terms of physical and spiritual transformation. Ophelia’s character depicts a hero who has been resurrected as a human. Thus, she begins her journey to cross the threshold, “pass from the everyday world in the world of adventure,” (Campbell). There are many stages in the film that depicts Ophelia’s introduction to the stages of being a hero. More so, it focuses on tasks, which Ophelia must pass or fail in order to determine her role in the film; Princess of the Underworld or just a human soul. This is lead by the faun who simply reassures a place of ‘paradise’ for Ophelia only with her cooperation to listen and follow her morals.
In the title “In This Strange Labyrinth”, the labyrinth is symbolic of love’s maze-like qualities. The speaker describes her predicament by saying, “In this strange Labyrinth how shall I turn/Ways are on all sides” (1-2). A different path on every side surrounds her, and every way seems to be the wrong way. She is confused about which way she should go. Wroth is conveying the theme of love in a decidedly negative way, for according to myth, the Labyrinth was where the Minotaur lived and before it’s demise, death was evident for all visitors of the maze. The speaker is struggling with every choice she may make and cannot rest or find aid until she finds the best way: “Go forward, or stand still, or back retire;/ I must these doubts endure without allay/ Or help, but travail find for my best hire” (10-11). She has several choices and each one is confusing and leaves her feeling helpless.
In Jorge Luis Borges' "Garden of Forking Paths", we find the protagonist as a Chinese English professor Yu Tsun who is a spy for the German army, obviously chased by his enemy, Richard Madden who is an Irishman at the service of the English army. At first glance, Yu Tsun may seem to be a "loyal" member of the German army but he manifests a characteristic throughout the story as being the oppressed member of the army. It seems that Yu Tsun shows a "desperate desire of the oppressed to be accepted by its oppressors." Yu Tsun doesn't care about Germany which imposed upon him the objection of being a spy. He even refers to the chief as a sick and hateful man and that he only needs to prove to him that a "yellow man" could save his armies. It's ironic because it clearly shows that Yu Tsun is oppressed because of his race (Yellow=Chinese) and yet he still serves the one oppressing him and even seeks its approval. He seems to be struggling in a Labyrinth of oppression, forever lost within its walls. This is just one of the Labyrinths that Yu Tsun is engaged/ trapped in. The story speaks about a certain Labyrinth, that which is related to Tsui Pen, a book which is composed of different chapters that seem to be diverging from a single path which also creates its own diverging paths. This particular part in the story challenges/ questions the common notion of time as being a linear process and instead raises a possibility of history branching out in an endless number of diverse directions at each spot in time; every space-time node as the midpoint of a system of branching or forking paths, an ever-recurring moment/place of selection with profound effects on and links to everything else. The book represents a Labyrinth of time "where all possible outcomes occur; each one is the point of departure for other forkings which sometimes converge" ( 22). Also, before going inside Albert's house, Yu Tsun got lost in the garden, which seemed like a maze. This is the result of his pondering over his ancestor's Labyrinth; Getting caught in this maze allowed the reader to reflect over a different perspective about real life. This maze represented the numerous paths that a person can travel and all of the outcomes from these paths. Thus, I can infer that the imagination is one of the representations of the Labyrinth.
In order to understand the relationship between Roquentin’s “feeling of adventure” and his friend Anny’s idea of a “perfect moment” the defining characteristics of each idea must be discerned. Roquentin explicitly defines the feeling of adventure as being “that of the irreversibility of time.”(pg. 57). Although Roquentin has traveled the world and had many exotic experiences, he does not consider any of them to be adventures because in those moments he was not conscious of his own existence or of the passing of time. By this definition, a true adventure is characterized as beginning the moment in which the adventurer becomes conscious of the passing of each precious moment in time that can never be repeated. Another defining characteristic of Roquentin’s feeling of adventure is the way in which it “comes when it pleases.”(pg. 56). Even though a person may be conscious of their own existence as well as the passing of time, this does not mean that an adventure can be realized because adventures, for Roquentin, seem to be contingent on a certain linkage of moments. To Roquentin, it is unknown what determine...
The idea of people playing pretend and using their imagination may sound silly, but it is in fact not. Imagination has the potential to be used as a utensil. It can used to create multiple universes with diverse outcomes and possibilities. These are what we call counterfactuals. These thoughts are the woulda-coulda-shouldas. “What if I did…?” “I wonder what my life would have been like if…” The list goes on and on. You can use counterfactual thinking to think ahead in the future to plan out your next actions, look into your past to see what you could have done differently or to even watch your present self. In this essay, I argue that imagination and counterfactual thinking can be used as a means to problem solving because counterfactual thinking
Jorge Luis Borges’ thought provoking and fantastical literature stems from his philosophical mind. His stories, especially “Death and the Compass”, focus on labyrinths and identity. Borges fascinates his audience with his analysis of reality. He combines fact and fiction to create the perfect genre of mystery. His characters’ conquest for the unknown defines his use of detective fiction.
We are part of a journey that has been progressing since the beginning of time. However, we as a society always seem to be looking past the present to some climactic end -- the finish line, the future, when in reality, there is no finish line. Society always looks to the future for the answers to today's problems, believing that the future holds something exciting that the present lacks. This is not the way we should be thinking! We should be asking ourselves, "What finish line are we hoping to arrive to?" Or better yet, "Do we want to arrive at a finish line at all?"
Emily Dickinson's "Because I could Not Stop For Death" also uses remembered images of the past to make clear of the possible. She doesn't seem to be concerned with where she is going, infact, she enjoying the scenery. It may be possible that she knows...
Chuck Palahniuk has a quote in his book, Invisible Monsters, that goes “people are all over the world telling their one dramatic story and how their life has turned into getting over this one event. Now their lives are more about the past than their future” (1999, p. 117). As somebody who temporarily let “one dramatic story” from their past possess the reigns of their future, I would love the opportunity to put that story behind me and allow myself the future I originally had planned.
“Can the future affect the present, and can the present affect the past?”(1) This is the question posed by the philosophical concept of retrocasualty – the product of time travel to the past. Time travel has been a common staple in science fiction writing, so many of its explanations owe their origins to tales of protagonists discovering its often confusing implications. Many people may already have a great understanding of a few hypothesized behaviors of time travel due to popular media, such as Back to the Future, Star Trek, and many other works of fiction. Currently, scientific knowledge is too premature to know if time travel is possible, no less how it behaves, so questions and answers are open for anybody to contemplate. The most famous question of time travel is the one posed by the temporal paradox, in which the time traveler invokes a condition which causes the circumstances that led up to time travel, or the time traveler’s presence, to become impossible. Many theories have attempted to answer this paradox, introducing behaviorally diverse concepts such as merging time lines, multiple dimensions, or a nature of time where everything is predestined. The act of time travel can produce radically different effects, depending on which solution to the temporal paradox is applied.